


Me Before You

by bi_leigh_bi



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Husbands, Implied Past Attempted Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Soulmates, The Affects of a Long Life Filled with Violence, brown characters deserve to have their backs blown out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:29:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bi_leigh_bi/pseuds/bi_leigh_bi
Summary: There is nothing that will soothe Joe except to touch and be touched. No words. No looks. Not even the satisfaction of their enemies’ deaths can sate him. He is a man of words and he is currently unable to use any of them. If he opens his mouth now, what he speaks will be as deadly as his weapons could ever be.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 85
Kudos: 932





	Me Before You

Yusuf is a poet, an artist. He is a warrior, yes, but also a man of faith. An historian if only by virtue of having lived through so much of it. He is a man of many words, he picks up languages with ease, he knows exactly how to say what he needs to say. He gives his words like gifts, he means them. They are not frivolous or wasteful. 

But above all of these things... he is _Nicky’s_. His lover, protector and his equal, his partner. Half of his soul. _All and more_. In all the words in all the languages he knows he has not yet found one to encompass the love he feels for his Niccolò.

But right now, driving away from the lab, he is silent. He can feel his Nicky’s eyes on him. His hand curls around Joe’s thigh and Joe drops his hand to cover it. He squeezes a bit too tight but Nicky does not complain. He turns his hand over and twines their fingers. Holding as tight. Joe does not dare look at him. If he looks at him now he will fall apart and he needs to drive.

At some point Booker dares to try to speak and a mere look from Joe in the rearview mirror silences him. It’s Andy who directs him to a hotel well outside the city limits. They can rent their own little suite there with more than enough bedrooms for them all. It won’t be safe for the long run, but it will give them time to regroup. To clean up. To get Booker out of Joe’s sight before he does something he shouldn’t.  
  


For Joe to let himself feel that yes, Nicky is still with him.

It’s still several hours before they make it there. In that time all but Andy and Joe fall asleep. Nicky’s head falls gently onto Joe’s shoulder and Joe wraps his arm around his shoulders, driving with one hand. Joe can smell the blood matted in his hair. His stomach churns.

Jackets and hats are pulled on, faces cleaned as best they can be, before they exit the car. Andy and Booker go to check them in and Joe goes through the motions as he and Nicky grab the bags that had been hastily stuffed into the trunk of the car- always prepared. Nile watches both pairs with sad and soulful eyes. Joe wishes he could offer her kind and uplifting words. She has not exactly gotten to see the best of them or this life in the last few days. And Joe loves this life. His life with Nicky. With these people who are his family. But right now, in this moment, he has nothing to offer.

The ride up to their rooms is silent and that silence is heavy, suffocating. Nicky takes his hand again and Joe only allows himself that.   
  


“Joe-“ Andy starts, as they all spill into the main room.   
  


His jaw tightens. He doesn’t need to see his Niccolò to know that he is shaking his head. That he is clearly telling them to leave Joe be. And it’s for the best. He can remember in perfect detail the last time losing Nicky for even a moment had upset him this much. This is worse. If he opens his mouth to speak now he will not be able to take back what he says. And he’s too old and knows too much to let that happen. His anger will fade, he will come to understand this betrayal as much as he can, and he will love Booker as a brother again. That will be harder if he allows himself to speak now.  
  


”Take the left,” Andy says finally. “It has its own bathroom.”

Joe breathes out, his hand tightens on Nicky’s hand and they do as Andy says. Taking the set of rooms on the left. 

“Is Joe-“ He hears Nile begin as the door closes behind them.   
  


“I need a shower and then a longer soak,” Nicky says softly beside him. He raises their joined hands and presses his lips to Joe’s knuckles. “Come, my Yusuf, look at me.”

He hesitates to obey. He’s held together by such a very thin rope right now. Days of torture. Of watching Nicky be hurt over and over. Thinking he might never be free to hold him again. And then... the gun in Nicky’s mouth. In his mouth. The way he’d grabbed his hair and forced it into his mouth. And then the entire back of his head blown out- he makes a hurt noise and turns towards Nicky, wrapping his arms around him. Collapsing into him. The weight of this betrayal making his entire body ache.

”Shhh, my love. My Yusuf. My all,” Nicky murmurs, holding him tight. “We’re here, we are together.”  
  


“Always,” Joe murmurs, pressing his forehead to Nicky’s. “Always together.” Always. Always. He had to believe that whatever miracle had brought them into this nearly eternal life together would take them from it together as well. “ _Ya Qamar. Hayati._ My love. My Niccolò.”

Warm hands in his curls, trailing down his cheeks, smoothing his beard. Joe closes his eyes, turning his face into the touch. The only touch that has ever mattered. The only one to come home to, to stay alive for. Lips on his cheek, just below his eye, against the side of his nose. Nicky’s whispered Italian against his skin. He is alive. Alive. Alive. 

He’s sliding to his knees without realizing it, his arms around Nicky’s waist. Hands pushing up under the back of his shirt. His face pressed against the now bare skin of Niccolò’s stomach as sobs break free. Held in from the very moment he had Awoken in an armored car with Nicky still dead beside him. His pain flows free in a way it only ever can in the safety of his arms. It doesn’t matter that the others can surely hear him. All that matters is that he is with Niccolò. 

Nicky curls over him, holds him. Continues to whisper affections in Italian. Not trying to calm him, letting him have this, protecting him as Joe cries and shudders and clings to him. Wets his skin with his tears. It’s better than blood. All he can see is Niccolò in pain. That man shoving that gun into his mouth. The desperate way he’d been fighting to get to Joe. He can’t stand it. He wants to kill that man all over again. But he was so tired. And he wasn’t- he didn’t relish the killing and that man had had to die but what he had done to his Niccolò-

”My love,” Nicky’s words finally pierce through his pain. “My love, come with me.”

He sniffles and nods, stands, his body dragging up Nicky’s. He takes Nicky’s shirt off as he does so that he can touch all that smooth pale skin. No evidence at all of the pain they’d suffered. Nicky’s hands work his shirt off in kind and both are thrown to the floor. Skin to skin it finally feels like he can _breathe_. He follows as Nicky begins to move backwards. They work each other’s pants open, he’s not sure who’s hands are where. All that matters is that they lose them between the bedroom and the bathroom.   
  


Nicky pulls away only long enough to turn the shower on, getting the water hot. This place is nice enough that it barely takes a moment. Nicky pushes him under the spray and Joe gasps as it sluices down his skin. It feels good to be rinsed clean. But he wastes no time before he turns them, pushes Nicky under and runs his fingers- fingers that shake now- through his fine hair. Water runs in small red rivers down his chest and Joe sobs again, presses his forehead to Nicky’s. There are pieces of bone that hit the bottom of the shower.

“I couldn’t save you,” he says brokenly 

Nicky shushes him, kisses him, head just barely shaking. He knows Nicky would tell him it was not his fault and normally he would not take the blame. They’re both strong and capable and though they both have the instinct to protect one another it’s never with the assumption that they cannot handle themselves. This feels different. It hurts more. They’ve never been science experiments before. And only two times before have they been bound and kept from one another. Close enough to see each other’s pain but unable to stop it.

It hurts him in very deep places.

”We are here,” Niccolò reminds him. “We survive. Together.” The water is finally running clear. “Let me take care of you.”

Hand in his curls now, rubbing so gently at his scalp. Down the back of his neck. Working out muscles that are so tense they are painful. He knows he suffered too on those tables but oh- oh his Niccolò.   
  


“ _Do you remember the first time you kissed me_?” Nicky asks, in the oldest dialect they both know. The language itself like coming home. Joe nods but says nothing. Silent invitation for Nicky to continue. “ _You told me our eternal life was God’s will, that my presence in yours was his gift. You kissed my forehead and my cheeks and my eyes and then my lips. So sweetly. And for the first time I saw my love for you as you did. A gift from God. We entered this world together, I would not leave you alone in it._ ”

Joe’s breathing has calmed, finally. His hands still drag and pull at Nicky, needing him closer but he’s beginning to feel more himself. Nicky is alive. The images will fade. They will be more careful and they will deal with the betrayal within their own family. All that matters now is that they are here. 

“I need you,” he says, finally raising his head, meeting Nicky’s pale eyes. Like the storm ravaged ocean. “Please.”

He doesn’t need to beg, Niccolò would never deny him, but Nicky’s eyes always go a little darker when he does. He turns the water off and they stumble their way out of the shower. Nicky grabs a towel and dries them. Maddeningly slow, but Joe knows he hates to be in bed when he’s wet. Joe smiles and waits so patiently, even as each touch makes him harder. Nicky knows. By the end it is a tease. The drag of towel and fingers intentional until Joe’s breath is rough again and he is aching and hard. But he waits.   
  
Waits for Nicky to take his hand and lead him back to the bed. He kicks their bag closer, and there will be lube in the front pocket. Joe finds himself smiling because there is always lube in the front pocket. Almost a thousand years and still they know to be prepared. That their desire for one another has not waned or faded.   
  


Nicky gently pushes him down on the bed. Makes a space for himself between Joe’s thighs. And Joe aches for him, dark eyes taking in every detail of his face. The slope of his brow, the curve of his nose, the shape of his lips. Nicky’s hands grasp his and pull his arms up over his head even as he pushes Joe to lay down.   
  


“I’m going to take you back to Malta,” Nicky promises him, kissing him. Kissing his chin, his neck. His collar bones. The softest drag of softest lips and the hint of hot wet tongue. “We’ll go away just the two of us. I’ll keep you naked for a solid month. I want to see and touch every inch of you.” Nicky is not always a talker. He prefers action to words. But he knows Yusuf. He knows what Joe needs right now is to hear him _and_ feel him. “I will take you under the sun and the moon and in the ocean waves.”   
  


His lips have found Joe’s nipples and his back arches of the bed. There is no part of him his Niccolò is not taking the time to touch. He is putting him back together inch by inch. He is so alive and warm above Joe. And Joe can feel the tears rising again, but Nicky does not shush him or deny him. He just keeps touching. Gently parting his thighs. Pushing him further up the bed. He ignores his hard and straining cock in favor of going lower. Parting Joe’s cheeks and licking a broad stripe over his tense entrance. Joe cries out, he doesn’t hold back. He forgets about everyone but Nicky. Nicky moans and licks again, and again. Deeper and deeper. Pushing Joe open, working him looser. Relaxing him even as he makes his cock pulse. His back seems to never find the bed again, always arching up in his pleasure. His hands twist in the blankets and his legs spread wide.

No one else in the world could ever see him like this. Open and unguarded and vulnerable. But Niccolò treasures it, Joe knows this without question. And oh, they’d tried to take this from him. 

“Niccolò, my Niccolò.”

A moaned prayer. Worship. Nicky lifts his head after what feels like hours and he reaches down to the floor, fumbling through the bag, grabbing the lube. Joe pushes up on his elbows to watch him. Nicky moves up his body, lays beside him. He pulls Joe’s leg up and over his own so that he is spread wide again, so Niccolò can reach down and press a slicked finger into him. He’s ready for it. Moans as he is breached, his head falling back.

”My beautiful Yusuf,” Nicky moans, leaning in to kiss his jaw. “There is nowhere I would not follow you, nowhere I would go without bringing you with me. Don’t you know that? I know I worried you today, but I will not leave you.”

”They hurt you, they killed you,” Joe sobs, hips rolling which each thrust of Nicky’s finger. “The way he touched you- the gun in your mouth.“

There have been other times. Times when men sought to hurt and degrade them because of how they loved. And perhaps it is that which bothers him so. The reminder of things nearly done. The reminder of hurts his Niccolò had suffered because he loved him. There had been an intimate violence to the gun in Nicky’s mouth and it hurts Joe. He knows Nicky must feel it too, the violation.   
  


“This was not that, my love,” Nicky promises him, though a slight shudder runs through him and he swallows hard. He pushes a second finger into Joe’s tight heat and Joe whimpers. “And he is gone. He cannot touch me again. He cannot touch you. Only I can touch you now, Yusuf. _Amore_. Tell me, tell me only I can touch you and I will promise you that only you can touch me.”

A third finger. Nicky’s lips hovering over his. His eyes intent on Joe’s. Joe nods and Nicky makes a soft noise. 

“Only you,” he moans. “Only you can touch me.”

”And?” Nicky prompts.

”Only I can touch you,” Joe says, voice breaking. His fingers find Nicky’s soft lips, press just inside and a Nicky sucks on them, let’s his tongue lave over his skin. Joe thinks this alone might be enough to push him over the edge. “I am yours and you are mine,” he whispers and Nicky nips at his fingers before letting them slide from him lips.

”I am yours and you are mine,” Nicky agreed. “Only your touch will ever stay with me,” Nicky promises him. “No other touch matters.”   
  


His fingers withdraw and Joe’s makes a sorrowful noise. But Nicky is slicking his cock and moving between Joe’s thighs. He doesn’t tease. He slides into Joe in one smooth motion and Joe goes breathless, eyes wide and locked on Nicky’s. Their hands slide together, and Nicky pins them above Joe’s head as he starts to move. A slow and sinuous roll of his hips. His cock filling Joe, stretching him open like his fingers could never. His lips catch Joe’s, kissing him like he is ravenous for him. Joe returns the kiss with equal desire, equal need. His moans and Nicky’s lost to each other’s mouths. 

Nicky _takes him_. Leaving no room for doubt or fears. Only the knowledge that he is completely Nicky’s. That they are one and whole when together. Their bodies made to fit together. God’s will. His gift to Yusuf. His Niccolò. The snap of Nicky’s hips shakes the bed, pushes Yusef up the sheets. His thighs shake and he wraps his legs around Niccolò’s hips. He sobs his pleasure and begs for more. It is everything he needed. He aches in the best way. The feeling will stay with him regardless of how he heals.   
  


“You are my all, Yusuf,” Nicky tells him, voice strained. One hand pushes between them and grasps Joe’s cock. “My everything. And more. There is nothing that can touch what we have. No one who can take it.”   
  


Joe is close, so close. He can feel that Nicky is too.   
  


“Let me see you, _amore mio_. I want to see you come undone for me. Only for me.”

Joe tries to say something but all that comes out is Nicky’s name. Joe tightens around Nicky’s cock, his entire body taught, as he releases between them. Coating their skin. And Nicky’s mouth catches his again as he spills within him. Filling him. Claiming him. He keeps moving- working them both through their orgasms, shuddering and panting together- until he begins to soften and though he pulls out he doesn’t leave Joe’s side. Instead he pulls Joe closer and holds him.   
  


“I love you,” Joe murmurs, but is pained because the words are not enough. He needs new words to express what he feels for this man beside him.  
  


“I love you,” Nicky whispers in return. “I love you. Do you hear me? I will not leave you. We came into this immortal life together and I will go with you when we leave it.”

”And after?” Joe asks, eyes sore and heavy, nuzzling into Nicky’s chest. He thinks, _let me be the first to go, if we cannot go together in the exact same breath_. “After?” He pushes for an answer.  
  


Nicky pulls a blanket up over them. He holds Joe tighter and buries his face in his soft damp curls. “And after. Whatever our eternal rest may be, it will be together.” He says it like this fact. Like he knows. Maybe he does. 

Something inside of Joe finally- _finally_ \- settles. His body is loose now and heavy against Nicky. His breathing evening out. Sleep calling him. It will be okay. Niccolò is there. He will be there when he wakes. Soft hands are running through his hair, gently touching his face. Nicky whispering his love. Making sure he hears him as he finally falls into sleep. Into rest.

He is not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Someone on tumblr said “brown characters deserve to have their backs blown out” and then someone used it as a tag here and I cannot forget it. 2. But then there was also a lot of talk about brown characters getting to be vulnerable. I felt that too. 3. Listen Joe and Nicky are always visibly upset until the other is awake and alive. Until they can be sure they’re okay and healing. And I feel like after learning Andy is mortal they were feeling that even more. 4. That fight with Keane... it just made me feel something, like a punch to the gut. The desperate way Nicky tries to grab him to keep him away from Joe. How vulnerable he makes himself in the process. And there’s just something horrifyingly, violently intimate about the way Keane pushes the gun into his mouth to kill him. It’s purposeful. And then the way Joe can’t even look, the way he crawls to Nicky and can barely look at or touch him because of it? It just makes me feel a lot. And I imagine it makes Joe feel a lot because the way he kills Keane is also horrifying and intimate- which is not to say Joe enjoys it or only does it because of Nicky, that’s not how Joe works. Keane had to die. But Joe also made a choice in how to kill him and I think there were Reasons..


End file.
